"Ah!" Peggy said, with a sudden note of resolve.
It frightened the faithful Breton maid. "Don't see him, madame!" she cried. "Rest!"
"No rest for us yet, Pauline.... I will see him. I must see him. Let him be shown in here. Tell me as soon as he comes."
She turned and went through one of the windows just as the two men-servants came out of the other, having arranged the things for tea.
"When M. Collingwood comes," Pauline said, "show him in here."
The first footman bowed. Pauline's word was law in this house; and, though it was bitterly resented below-stairs that she, a servant herself, should have such authority, no one ventured to dispute it.
At the far end of the drawing-room—not the end where the curtained windows led out on to the terrace lounge—there was a tall screen of carved teakwood from Benares. Behind it upon a little table stood a telephone. The Admastons—husband and wife—had always made a great point of using the telephone. Peggy herself, with her impulsive moods, found it most convenient, and insisted upon having one in any room that she habitually used.
Pauline, her face wrinkled in thought, strolled mechanically to this corner of the room and gazed down upon the glittering little machine of ebony and silver with a frown of dislike. She was thinking of Collingwood and his message, and a dull resentment glowed in her brain at these mechanical facilities of life.
There were no telephones in Pont-Aven when she was a girl in the ancient Breton town, and these things seemed to her part and parcel of the hot, feverish, and hurried life in which her beloved mistress was suffering so greatly.
The old bonne's face, kindly and sweet enough when it wore its ordinary expression, was now mocking and malevolent as she stared at the table. Suddenly she stiffened, raised her head, and listened intently.